This election cycle saw nine candidate cities bidding to host the summer 2012 Olympics. While Paris and Madrid seemed neck and neck as excellent candidates, the games eventually landed in London’s hands—even though the British city failed to obtain the minimum acceptable score for two of the IOC’s judging criteria.
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Before every Olympic cycle, the International Olympic Committee undertakes a years-long process of evaluating and electing a host city from its list of candidates. Before the voting process begins, the IOC Evaluation Commission—composed of members of the IOC and technical advisors—reviews each candidate city and compiles a report, ranking each country based on a list of weighted metrics listed in the legend at left. Each country receives a score from 1 to 10 for each metric, as seen on the x-axis at left. A score of 6 is considered the minimum acceptable score for any criterion. Each metric is also given a weight from 2 to 5 representing on its relative importance for a host city. The weighted average of the criterion scores for each country becomes that country’s overall score from 1 to 10, represented on the y-axis.
While the IOC Evaluation Commission reports these scores to voting members of the IOC, each voter retains the right to vote for whichever host city they would like. Voting happens in multiple rounds as represented above. Each round, the candidate city receiving the fewest votes is eliminated until one country has a majority of votes. The eventual winner is highlighted in green throughout the graphic.